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What is the Kerf?
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What is the Kerf?
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What is the Kerf?
The kerf is the thickness of the foam melted by the Hot
Wire.
See the picture below:
The kerf is always larger (or equal..) to the hot wire diameter.
The slower the hot wire travels, the larger the kerf is.
The hotter is the wire, the larger the kerf is.
You can evaluate the kerf value with a cutting test, with your current speed
and temperature values on the same material (there are many different types of
foam..).
If you select to apply Kerf (you find this option in the
Cutting path page/frame of Simple
cutting and Advanced
cutting), devFoam will offset the cutting path of half that value, on
the external side of the Part(s).
If you want to have a negative Part (you save the external and trash the real
Part) you must apply a negative value.
Just a note: the offset function rounds the convex corners, but that doesn't affect the cut. You can see that in the below picture:
The Blue cutting path rounds the corner, but if you see the Red melted foam you can verify that the corner of the Pink part is then well cut
See also:Cutting by irradiation or by contact
I suggest also to take a look at this page, to better understand some important concepts of devFoam: DevFoam FAQ and important concepts
